Sitting on a table in an office at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, the weathered and rotted stump looks like a prop for a scene at a wharf or aboard a seafaring vessel.

The damaged stump, believed to be tamarack, was yanked out of a hole deep in the bowels of the Patty & Jay Baker Theater Complex, adjacent to the Milwaukee River and home to the Quadracci Powerhouse Theater, Stiemke Theater and the Stackner Cabaret. | Feb. 15, 2014»Read Full Article(37)

In the late 1930s, Robert E. Sherwood owned the American stage, winning Pulitzer Prizes for three plays. Opening on Broadway in 1935, and featuring an actor named Humphrey Bogart, "The Petrified Forest" isn't among them. But it's the Sherwood play that's best remembered today, thanks to Bogart's ensuing appearance in the 1936 film with Leslie Howard and Bette Davis.

Windfall Theatre artistic director Carol Zippel is convinced Sherwood's "Forest" can still take root, and she's stating her case in a Windfall production that opened Friday night under her direction. | Feb. 15, 2014»Read Full Article

"Of Rice and Men"

The Edible Book Festival at the Whitefish Bay Library, 5420 N. Marlborough Drive, will be a buffet of literary allusions from puns on titles and reproductions of book covers to plummy portraits of prominent poets. The public is invited to help judge contest entries Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Cupcakes will help fend off these hunger games. | Feb. 15, 2014»Read Full Article